This month, Green Party membership began to grow. In two quiet summer months, the number of paid up members will have increased by around about 150 by the time Conference starts. Sometime next year, the party will have passed 8,000 members for the first time in twenty years, and in two years, should be closing in on the psychologically important 10,000 mark.
How is it that I can make this claim with any certainty? Well, part of it is a definite trend to better publicity and media presence over the last 12 months, with Caroline Lucas and Siân Berry gaining increasing presence in print and television.
Caroline’s strong message about policing and the climate camp, and then a full page in yesterday’s Independent has pulled in a bunch of members, much as happened in London during the Mayoral campaign.
But there is a much more basic reason: nearly all the new members have joined using Direct Debit. Around 800 new members used Direct Debit when they joined this year. Very few of them will lapse next year, as they will simply pay their subs automatically. Historically, it seems that most new members would lapse after one or two years.
This August, the first of 70 of these DD members renewed successfully. Every month from now on, more members will renew without the palaver of renewal notices and forms in the post.
Over the year, with a big election coming up, we should see at least 1,000 new members join: and again, most of these will not lapse. We should be on for steady membership growth over the next two to four years, along with higher party income as a result.
And with more efforts from local parties to recruit, we can go onto even greater success, meaning more grassroots activity, more involvement, and more democratic action from Greens at all levels of government.
The challenge, of course, is to get new members active. They are most enthusiastic when they join. They will want to do things which are meaningful, and contribute to real successes. Just as importantly, we need to show that we have a strong participatory democracy, where people’s views are respected.
Nearly every other political party’s membership is declining. The Green Party – even as recession bites and money gets tight – is likely to be the only major party whose membership is growing.
[ Technical note: because we count everyone up to 6 months overdue as a member, these increases will only be visible in the membership figures in six months time, although the increased income will be visible from now on in ]